Software defined Storage â Agile Solutions for Smarter Storage - Wipro
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SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE AGILE SOLUTIONS FOR SMARTER STORAGE
Jitendra Kumar Jain
Senior Manager, Software Defined Infrastructure CoE, at Wipro Technologies
Manjari Sharma
Intern, Global 100 Intern program
Mayur Shah
Head Presales - Datacenter, System Integration and Maintenance Services
Table of Contents 01
Abstract
01
Data: New Currency Of Today’s Business
01
Traditional Storage
02
SDS Changing The Game
02
SDS Features And Benefits
03
SDS Use Cases
03
SDS Challenges
04
SDS Vendor Ecosystem
04
SDS Solutions Layer By Layer Offerings
05
SDS Industry Analysis
06
Buy What You Need
06
Buyers Concerns And SI Role
07
SI Providing Comprehensive Solution
08
Conclusion
09
About the Authors
09
About Wipro Limited
Abstract The past few years have witnessed flurry of action and hype around Software Defined Storage (SDS). There are numerous vendors claiming to grind out SDS solutions and products every other week. The Technology is great and disruptive, but there are adoption barriers for end users. The intent of this white paper is to provide a perspective to the technology, benefits and challenges of adoption, and how and where System Integrator can fill the gaps and help the user in leveraging the best benefits of SDS.
Data: New Currency Of Today’s Business The storage required for exponentially growing data due to IoT, digitalization, social media, mobility etc., is in the range of about 40% to 60% per annum, as per industry reports and analysis. Based on this level of growth, storage capacities double every 18 months. For many datacenters the growth rate is in excess of 100% per year. Yet, only 65% of enterprise storage is effectively utilized. Before we discuss what Software Defined Storage is and how it is helping datacenter metamorphosis let’s look at the challenges of today’s storage world.
Traditional Storage Key Challenges in Storage World: • Managing Storage Growth • Proper Capacity Forecasting
In the past and in many datacenters now, legacy systems deliver storage through dedicated hardware devices. Configuration of these devices is done box by box. Troubleshooting is even more complex, requiring deep expertise in product architecture and that too different skill set for different vendor
• Storage Reporting
configurations. Managing storage includes a mundane set of activities like
• Storage Provision Takes Time
creating volumes, assigning LUNs, backup, repeated configuration tasks,
• Managing Costs
fulfillment of requests and keeping the lights on. Most storage products are
• Migration Data and Volumes Require Lot of Time
proprietary and with very limited openness either in software or hardware.
• Managing Complexity and Heterogeneity of Storage
Proprietary storage management software from the respective product
• Required Storage Performance Can’t be Met in Current Scenario
vendors is needed to manage this complex infrastructure. Thus, traditional
• Vendor Lock-ins • Opex is Even More Than Capex • Lot of Manual Intervention Required for Storage Management
storage architectures are a vertically integrated stack of proprietary closed systems. These problems are driving end users to look outside their datacenters for an answer. Cloud technologies and services represent the fastest way for the business to reach new buyers.
01
SDS Changing The Game SDS abstracts storage capabilities, dynamically derived from physical/virtual
Multiple layer of abstractions allow to introduce more innovative and
devices, independent on class/type of storage to offer agility, scalability,
cheaper solutions, which can be integrated with existing ones using APIs
quality of service while optimizing costs. These services are orchestrated via
thus demoting the vendor lock-ins.
interoperable, programmable interfaces through the software layers (typically REST APIs) that are separated into a control plane (management
Figure below shows how SDS architecture is different from traditional
and policy implementation) and data planes (infrastructure and data
storage with SDS controller and storage resource manager that can help in
transport), independent of where data is placed and stored to meet a
managing different types of storage from single pane of glass.
defined policy or SLA.
Orchestration Workloads Storage Resource Manger
Application Layer
Object
Flash Block
Northbound APIs Management Layer
Tire 1
Tire 2
File Hadoop
Tire 3
Tire 4
Storage Controller
Southbound APIs SAN
Infrastructure Layer
Hyper converged
Storage Infrastructures
NAS
FLASH
SDS Architecture
Integration APIs
CLOUD
Limited Orchestration and SRM, Individual Workloads
Workloads
Limited or Restrictive APIs for Customized Apps
Individual Controllers, Box by Box Management
Workloads
Workloads
File
Block
Object
Flash
Tier 4
Tier 3
Tier 2
Tier 1
NAS
SAN
Workloads
Traditional Storage Architecture
Orchestration Layer
FLASH
Storage Infrastructures with Individual Controllers
SDS ARCHITECTURE
TRADITIONAL STORAGE
SDS Features And Benefits Abstraction Programmability
SDS
LOWER TCO
Optimize commoditized hardware, repurpose existing hardware and automation of operational tasks
MOBILITY
Move data across datacenter and private/public cloud with ease Automated provision / derision, faster response time and workload driven solutions
Central Management
AGILITY
Orchestration
SCALABILITY scale out SDS architecture. Achieve massive scalability
Improved scalability by leveraging object and file based using Public Cloud
Instrumentation Policy Management
Datacenter Optimization FLEXIBILITY AUTOMATIC TIERING
Application centricity, hardware/software of your own choice and functionalities for monitoring, reporting, intelligent and predictive analytics Automation of placing data in the required storage tier
02
SDS Use Cases
Backup Solution Transformation • Flexible solutions with deduplication at source and compression in target • Benefits: Lower Restoration and recovery time, scale out architecture
Automated and Policy Based Archive • Automation of archiving to cloud (Public/Private) storage • Benefits: Lower TCO, cheaper archive solutions like cloud, scale out architecture and seamless discovery
Disaster Recovery • SDS enables on demand and cost effective DR solution, leveraging all host based replicated workload and data at DR site • Benefits: DR as a service, DR site on SDS solution, lower TCO
TCO savings offered by SDS over traditional storage solutions in different stages of storage use is approximately given:
ACQUIRE
TCO Savings
~ 25% to 45%
IMPLEMENT
~ 6% to 8%
MANAGE
~ 15% to 35%
SDS Challenges SDS CHALLENGES Enterprise Readiness
SDS might be a good bet for greenfield projects, but introducing SDS in existing datacenters / brownfield projects requires detailed analysis
Integration
SDS offers capability to have integration with any vendor hardware, any monitoring, orchestration and cloud solutions, but integration is challenging and requires skills and knowledge on various vendors solutions
Different Interpretations
SDS has been interpreted by each vendor differently hence there is need to carefully look at vendor future SDS roadmap, architectural principals before finalizing any solution
Too Many Vendors
There are many vendors in SDS market with different offerings leading to confusion among end customers
Abstraction Not Attracting
Abstraction functionality may add more complexity due to the need of extensive compatibility testing and handling multi-vendor support for escalation and troubleshooting, thus adding to opex costs
Comprehensive Solution
Though there are many vendors with different solutions, but a comprehensive solution is still not available in today’s market
Management
Management challenges in defining the scope of control given to SDS controller
Lack of Cloud Economics
SDS though cheaper than traditional lacks granular and aggressive pricing offerings like cloud
03
SDS Vendor Ecosystem SDS is delivered in multiple ways in today’s market. Below is information on some of the vendor’s offerings:
MODELS TYPES
SOFTWARE ONLY MODEL
What?
Software without associated hardware
How?
Vendors
Pros
CLOUD BASED MODEL
HYPER-CONVERGED MODEL
Pay-as-you-go model
Preconfigured Systems
HARDWARE FOR SDS SOLUTIONS
Build-your-own-array
Hardware for SDS
Open Source
Proprietary
Hosting the SDS platform on a public cloud infrastructure, can also be delivered as a virtual private cloud
Software-centric architecture that tightly integrates resources and other technologies in a commodity hardware box supported by a single vendor.
Hardware boxes for installation of SDS environment
Communities & new startups
Traditional Vendors and multiple startups
Few existing cloud players and new startups
Many new startups
New Startups and traditional players trying to enter
• Easy to install
• On the fly provision
• Affordable
• Pay as per use
• Preconfigured and tested solutions from vendors
• High scope of innovation
• Can leverage general purpose storage arrays by driving down costs
• No capex
• Adoption not an issue
• Less TCO
• Scale up/down on demand
• Hardware and software support from a single vendor in many cases
• Increased Flexibility
• Support of hardware and software from different vendors
• No transparency of infrastructure
• Inability to make granular upgrades or tweaks
• New concept
• Most SDS products have limited certified interoperable list, leading to interoperability issues
• General public cloud concerns like security, network latency
• Tuning storage disk configuration for a particular application is a challenge
• Compatibility guidelines need to be followed as per providers
• Less capex
Mostly traditional players
• Granular features Cons
• Dependence on hardware vendor to maintain competitive pricing • Limitation in choosing additional hardware and dependent on HCL mentioned by vendor
• Inability to make granular upgrades or tweaks
• Upgradation of storage requires addition of hardware
SDS Solutions Layer By Layer Offerings Not only the number of vendors in market is huge, but the kind of offerings are different and the amount of abstraction features offered by each vendor is different too. Below are some:
SDS ECOSYSTEM Orchestration & Cloud Platform
• Mostly traditional vendors
Automation Layer
• Very innovative startups and few traditional vendors
Storage Orchestration
• Startups and traditional vendors
SDS Controller
• Multiple startups and traditional players
Storage OS
• Mostly startups and few traditional vendors
Plain Storage Boxes
• Multiple startups and traditional players trying to enter
04
SDS Industry Analysis • Though traditional players have clear dominance in storage market, but SDS will allow inclusion of many other vendors in the storage space leading to less vendor lock-ins • Threat of substitutes is low; though technology is changing continuously and capex will reduce, but core storage functionality will change at very lower pace • Customers enjoy huge bargaining power given the technology is new and brand loyalty is less. Also there are a lot of price & product differences
STRENGTHS:
WEAKNESSES:
• SDS market expected to grow from $1.4bn to $6.2bn (CAGR 34.6%) by 2019 (Markets & Markets Research, 2015)
• Numerous vendors
• Multiple Channels to reach customers
• No standard skill set
• Difficulty of migration/integration
• Multi-vendor management
OPPORTUNITIES:
THREATS:
• Venture capital funding of SDS-related companies is rising
• Frequent technology changes
• Market embrace open source
• High customers’ bargaining power
• Focus on software over hardware
HIGH
MEDIUM
POTENTIAL ENTRANTS
INDUSTRY COMPETITION
BARGAINING POWER HIGH OF CUSTOMERS
Porter's Five Forces SDS Industry Analysis
LOW
THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES
BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS
MEDIUM
05
Buy What You Need Make sure you know the scope of solution offered the monitoring & performance capabilities, virtualization, troubleshooting and security features of SDS solution. Below are some of the other important features offered: Flash, NAS, Object, HDFS, Archive
Basic Feature Set Hardware, Software, Converged, Interoperability
Delivery Model
Data Resiliency
Replication, Erasure coding
Know what you need Openstack, VMware, Citrix, Amazon
DR Features
Cloud Integration
Snapshot, Auto-sync
BE INQUISITIVE
Know what you get
Efficiency
Scalability & Availability
BE PREPARED Multi-Tenancy, Scale-out, Metro cluster, Workload adjacency
Know how to optimize
STAY ALERT
Data deduplication, auto data tiering, compression, thin provisioning
Buyers Concerns And SI Role System Integrators (SI) can fill the gaps here as they are already providing storage integration services. By acquiring required new skill set and partnerships in SDS, they can help customers in their adoption journey which is a major concern of SDS market today.
USER’S CONCERNS
WHAT SI DOES
• Limited skills to evaluate best solution • Not sure which use-case to implement • Recent investments done in technology
Consultancy services
• • • •
Tested and Proven Solution
Will there be interoperability issues? Industry standards? Is the solution provided a tested one Whether to choose end to end or point solution
• How to integrate my storage from cloud • Develop customized apps I require • How to leverage existing storage
• Expertise & experience in integration services • Analyze the customer’s environment, Develop the roadmap and provide best fit solutions with best TCO savings and ROI
• Make sure the solutions offered are tested and proven • Whether to choose end to end or point solution
Integration & Migration Services Help customers by defining roadmap for integration and migration to required solutions
06
• How to collaborate with different vendors • How to handle administration involving an environment of different vendors
Managed Service Provider Support Collaborate with different vendors and provide break-fix support from end to end
SI Providing Comprehensive Solution PEOPLE
PRACTICES & PROCESS
PRODUCT
Multi Skill Set SI will require people with dual/multi skills – Programming, Scripting, Automation
• Policy Based Service Portal for
users where they can allocate/de-allocate and manage storage based on requirement
• Developing Tools/Apps around predictive analytics, troubleshooting, auditing, policy governance
• Customized Reports & Dashboards
CREATION OF VALUES ACROSS ALL LAYERS
• Streamlining IT Processes
Streamlining processes for SLA/request/incident management can help further in reducing operational costs and costs per employee
Orchestration
• Vertical Integration with SDN,
Workloads
SDC, SDDC (Software Defined Network, Compute and Data center) solutions
• Policy Based Backup
Storage Resource Manger
Management
• Discovery Tool to check SDS
• Integrating the Right Things,
readiness of environment
Partners Ecosystem Evaluating partners and their solutions for best match of customer needs
Finding the white spaces in deployment process based on detailed analysis, application criticality mapping with storage tier considering performance growth, capacity etc.
• Customized SRM Unified
management across storage solutions
• Creation of virtual pool for
Object
Flash Block
File Hadoop
• Templatization of
maximizing the utilization and creating composite end state
application/workload centric and services driven deployment practice and processes
• Northbound API Development Aligning controller with SRM
• Cloud Integration API
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
• Provisioning Automation
Automate the processes which will help in saving Opex
Storage Controller
Vendor Agnostic Evaluate the partners’ solutions neutrally
• Southbound API Development
Mapping existing and identifying the gaps and develop custom
• Backup Archival & DR Services • Feature Enhancements
• Investment Protection
Leveraging existing infrastructure with SDS offerings
• Reuse/Recycle Using old and
traditional hardware for activities like archiving, storage etc
SAN
Hyper converged
NAS
FLASH
Development
CLOUD
Storage Infrastructures
• Integrated solutions in line with multiple consumption model Traditional, IaaS, Private and Public Cloud, pay as you grow
AGILITY
ELASTICITY
COST
FLEXIBILITY
07
Conclusion Traditional IT, including storage systems, aren’t poised to fulfil customer's
Software Defined Storage is a new paradigm and requires efforts on
future needs and demands. The unprecedented growth of data (almost
integration, manageability and validation of what works and what doesn't
doubling every year) has added to new challenges. The unmet needs of
in customer data centers. This also requires a new set of tools,
businesses along with increasing operating costs, have led to innovation,
technologies and skill sets. This provides an unique opportunity to
new architectures and new products culminating into adoption and
System Integrators (SI) who are well placed to bring all the benefits of
growth of Software Defined Storage. While some of the business goals
Software Defined Storage, overcoming the challenges, using their home
are met with SDS - lower TCO along with agility and flexibility is
grown adoption methods, tools and technology expertise.
achieved - new challenges and issues have surfaced. Both, the large established vendors and umpteen number of start-ups, offering software defined storage in a wide variety, lead to multiple new challenges around interoperability, storage management, reporting, fragmentation leading to higher TCO, etc.
08
About the Authors Jitendra Kumar Jain Jitendra Kumar Jain is a Senior Manager, Software Defined Infrastructure CoE, at Wipro Technologies. He brings 14+ years of experience in Technology and Program Management. Jitendra’s diverse background includes leadership role at an Outsourced product development services firm, he co-founded and managed, the role of Engineering Program Manager at NetApp, Inc. and Member, Technical staff roles in various software products development and architecture teams that he was part of. Jitendra holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electronics & communications engineering from Gulbarga University and is a Project Management Institute Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is married with two children and lives in Bangalore.
Manjari Sharma Manjari Sharma has been a part of the Global 100 Intern program at Wipro and is currently enrolled in the Post Graduate Program in Management at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Before starting out on her management journey, she worked for five and a half years in infrastructure management services at IT majors such as Infosys and Wipro. Her experience is primarily in computing and Network platform. She has a keen interest in Technology and Marketing.
Mayur Shah Mayur Shah is Head Presales - Datacenter, System Integration and Maintenance Services. He is an experienced engineering graduate and IT professional with 17 years of experience in techno-commercial design of large and complex DC transformation solutions and delivery. Varied experience in understanding business requirements and creating Infrastructure Outsourcing Solutions. Experience in the development of IT strategy at a global level and services offerings for business growth. Core skills and experience in Compute and storage delivered through cloud technology. Have successfully delivered various roles in storage domain - SME, Storage Practice Head, Presales and now leading software defined storage practice for global market as one of the key objectives Rich experience in strategy & operations entailing setting up solution architecture and new business solution development organization. Sound understanding of Infrastructure Technology Outsouring (ITO) to acquire new business with the distinction of handling many deals of varying size. Managing turnkey contracts, transformational programs, transaction and outcome based pricing, services innovation, unit set up and operations. Broad exposure to the various industry verticals in both domestic and global market. Contact us at [email protected]
About GIS Global Infrastructure Services (GIS), a unit of Wipro Limited, is an end to end IT infrastructure & outsourcing services provider to global customers across 57 countries. Its suite of Technology Infrastructure services spanning Data Center, End User Computing, Networks, Managed Services, Business Advisory and Global System Integration. Wipro, is a pioneer in Infrastructure Management services and is amongst the fastest-growing providers across the world. GIS enables customers to do business better by enabling innovation via standardization and automation, so that businesses can be more agile & scalable, so that they can find growth and succeed in their global business. Backed by our strong network of Integrated ServiceNXT™ Operation Centers and 11 owned data centres spread across US, Europe and APAC, this unit serves more than 500+ clients across with a global team of 23,800 professionals and contributes to over 30% of Wipro’s IT Services revenues of Wipro Limited.
About Wipro Limited Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading Information Technology, Consulting and Business Process Services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology" - helping clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, a practitioner's approach to delivering innovation, and an organization wide commitment to sustainability, Wipro has a workforce of over 150,000 serving clients in 175+ cities across 6 continents. For more information, please visit www.wipro.com.
09
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IND/B&T/JUL-AUG 2015
SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE AGILE SOLUTIONS FOR SMARTER STORAGE
Jitendra Kumar Jain
Senior Manager, Software Defined Infrastructure CoE, at Wipro Technologies
Manjari Sharma
Intern, Global 100 Intern program
Mayur Shah
Head Presales - Datacenter, System Integration and Maintenance Services
Table of Contents 01
Abstract
01
Data: New Currency Of Today’s Business
01
Traditional Storage
02
SDS Changing The Game
02
SDS Features And Benefits
03
SDS Use Cases
03
SDS Challenges
04
SDS Vendor Ecosystem
04
SDS Solutions Layer By Layer Offerings
05
SDS Industry Analysis
06
Buy What You Need
06
Buyers Concerns And SI Role
07
SI Providing Comprehensive Solution
08
Conclusion
09
About the Authors
09
About Wipro Limited
Abstract The past few years have witnessed flurry of action and hype around Software Defined Storage (SDS). There are numerous vendors claiming to grind out SDS solutions and products every other week. The Technology is great and disruptive, but there are adoption barriers for end users. The intent of this white paper is to provide a perspective to the technology, benefits and challenges of adoption, and how and where System Integrator can fill the gaps and help the user in leveraging the best benefits of SDS.
Data: New Currency Of Today’s Business The storage required for exponentially growing data due to IoT, digitalization, social media, mobility etc., is in the range of about 40% to 60% per annum, as per industry reports and analysis. Based on this level of growth, storage capacities double every 18 months. For many datacenters the growth rate is in excess of 100% per year. Yet, only 65% of enterprise storage is effectively utilized. Before we discuss what Software Defined Storage is and how it is helping datacenter metamorphosis let’s look at the challenges of today’s storage world.
Traditional Storage Key Challenges in Storage World: • Managing Storage Growth • Proper Capacity Forecasting
In the past and in many datacenters now, legacy systems deliver storage through dedicated hardware devices. Configuration of these devices is done box by box. Troubleshooting is even more complex, requiring deep expertise in product architecture and that too different skill set for different vendor
• Storage Reporting
configurations. Managing storage includes a mundane set of activities like
• Storage Provision Takes Time
creating volumes, assigning LUNs, backup, repeated configuration tasks,
• Managing Costs
fulfillment of requests and keeping the lights on. Most storage products are
• Migration Data and Volumes Require Lot of Time
proprietary and with very limited openness either in software or hardware.
• Managing Complexity and Heterogeneity of Storage
Proprietary storage management software from the respective product
• Required Storage Performance Can’t be Met in Current Scenario
vendors is needed to manage this complex infrastructure. Thus, traditional
• Vendor Lock-ins • Opex is Even More Than Capex • Lot of Manual Intervention Required for Storage Management
storage architectures are a vertically integrated stack of proprietary closed systems. These problems are driving end users to look outside their datacenters for an answer. Cloud technologies and services represent the fastest way for the business to reach new buyers.
01
SDS Changing The Game SDS abstracts storage capabilities, dynamically derived from physical/virtual
Multiple layer of abstractions allow to introduce more innovative and
devices, independent on class/type of storage to offer agility, scalability,
cheaper solutions, which can be integrated with existing ones using APIs
quality of service while optimizing costs. These services are orchestrated via
thus demoting the vendor lock-ins.
interoperable, programmable interfaces through the software layers (typically REST APIs) that are separated into a control plane (management
Figure below shows how SDS architecture is different from traditional
and policy implementation) and data planes (infrastructure and data
storage with SDS controller and storage resource manager that can help in
transport), independent of where data is placed and stored to meet a
managing different types of storage from single pane of glass.
defined policy or SLA.
Orchestration Workloads Storage Resource Manger
Application Layer
Object
Flash Block
Northbound APIs Management Layer
Tire 1
Tire 2
File Hadoop
Tire 3
Tire 4
Storage Controller
Southbound APIs SAN
Infrastructure Layer
Hyper converged
Storage Infrastructures
NAS
FLASH
SDS Architecture
Integration APIs
CLOUD
Limited Orchestration and SRM, Individual Workloads
Workloads
Limited or Restrictive APIs for Customized Apps
Individual Controllers, Box by Box Management
Workloads
Workloads
File
Block
Object
Flash
Tier 4
Tier 3
Tier 2
Tier 1
NAS
SAN
Workloads
Traditional Storage Architecture
Orchestration Layer
FLASH
Storage Infrastructures with Individual Controllers
SDS ARCHITECTURE
TRADITIONAL STORAGE
SDS Features And Benefits Abstraction Programmability
SDS
LOWER TCO
Optimize commoditized hardware, repurpose existing hardware and automation of operational tasks
MOBILITY
Move data across datacenter and private/public cloud with ease Automated provision / derision, faster response time and workload driven solutions
Central Management
AGILITY
Orchestration
SCALABILITY scale out SDS architecture. Achieve massive scalability
Improved scalability by leveraging object and file based using Public Cloud
Instrumentation Policy Management
Datacenter Optimization FLEXIBILITY AUTOMATIC TIERING
Application centricity, hardware/software of your own choice and functionalities for monitoring, reporting, intelligent and predictive analytics Automation of placing data in the required storage tier
02
SDS Use Cases
Backup Solution Transformation • Flexible solutions with deduplication at source and compression in target • Benefits: Lower Restoration and recovery time, scale out architecture
Automated and Policy Based Archive • Automation of archiving to cloud (Public/Private) storage • Benefits: Lower TCO, cheaper archive solutions like cloud, scale out architecture and seamless discovery
Disaster Recovery • SDS enables on demand and cost effective DR solution, leveraging all host based replicated workload and data at DR site • Benefits: DR as a service, DR site on SDS solution, lower TCO
TCO savings offered by SDS over traditional storage solutions in different stages of storage use is approximately given:
ACQUIRE
TCO Savings
~ 25% to 45%
IMPLEMENT
~ 6% to 8%
MANAGE
~ 15% to 35%
SDS Challenges SDS CHALLENGES Enterprise Readiness
SDS might be a good bet for greenfield projects, but introducing SDS in existing datacenters / brownfield projects requires detailed analysis
Integration
SDS offers capability to have integration with any vendor hardware, any monitoring, orchestration and cloud solutions, but integration is challenging and requires skills and knowledge on various vendors solutions
Different Interpretations
SDS has been interpreted by each vendor differently hence there is need to carefully look at vendor future SDS roadmap, architectural principals before finalizing any solution
Too Many Vendors
There are many vendors in SDS market with different offerings leading to confusion among end customers
Abstraction Not Attracting
Abstraction functionality may add more complexity due to the need of extensive compatibility testing and handling multi-vendor support for escalation and troubleshooting, thus adding to opex costs
Comprehensive Solution
Though there are many vendors with different solutions, but a comprehensive solution is still not available in today’s market
Management
Management challenges in defining the scope of control given to SDS controller
Lack of Cloud Economics
SDS though cheaper than traditional lacks granular and aggressive pricing offerings like cloud
03
SDS Vendor Ecosystem SDS is delivered in multiple ways in today’s market. Below is information on some of the vendor’s offerings:
MODELS TYPES
SOFTWARE ONLY MODEL
What?
Software without associated hardware
How?
Vendors
Pros
CLOUD BASED MODEL
HYPER-CONVERGED MODEL
Pay-as-you-go model
Preconfigured Systems
HARDWARE FOR SDS SOLUTIONS
Build-your-own-array
Hardware for SDS
Open Source
Proprietary
Hosting the SDS platform on a public cloud infrastructure, can also be delivered as a virtual private cloud
Software-centric architecture that tightly integrates resources and other technologies in a commodity hardware box supported by a single vendor.
Hardware boxes for installation of SDS environment
Communities & new startups
Traditional Vendors and multiple startups
Few existing cloud players and new startups
Many new startups
New Startups and traditional players trying to enter
• Easy to install
• On the fly provision
• Affordable
• Pay as per use
• Preconfigured and tested solutions from vendors
• High scope of innovation
• Can leverage general purpose storage arrays by driving down costs
• No capex
• Adoption not an issue
• Less TCO
• Scale up/down on demand
• Hardware and software support from a single vendor in many cases
• Increased Flexibility
• Support of hardware and software from different vendors
• No transparency of infrastructure
• Inability to make granular upgrades or tweaks
• New concept
• Most SDS products have limited certified interoperable list, leading to interoperability issues
• General public cloud concerns like security, network latency
• Tuning storage disk configuration for a particular application is a challenge
• Compatibility guidelines need to be followed as per providers
• Less capex
Mostly traditional players
• Granular features Cons
• Dependence on hardware vendor to maintain competitive pricing • Limitation in choosing additional hardware and dependent on HCL mentioned by vendor
• Inability to make granular upgrades or tweaks
• Upgradation of storage requires addition of hardware
SDS Solutions Layer By Layer Offerings Not only the number of vendors in market is huge, but the kind of offerings are different and the amount of abstraction features offered by each vendor is different too. Below are some:
SDS ECOSYSTEM Orchestration & Cloud Platform
• Mostly traditional vendors
Automation Layer
• Very innovative startups and few traditional vendors
Storage Orchestration
• Startups and traditional vendors
SDS Controller
• Multiple startups and traditional players
Storage OS
• Mostly startups and few traditional vendors
Plain Storage Boxes
• Multiple startups and traditional players trying to enter
04
SDS Industry Analysis • Though traditional players have clear dominance in storage market, but SDS will allow inclusion of many other vendors in the storage space leading to less vendor lock-ins • Threat of substitutes is low; though technology is changing continuously and capex will reduce, but core storage functionality will change at very lower pace • Customers enjoy huge bargaining power given the technology is new and brand loyalty is less. Also there are a lot of price & product differences
STRENGTHS:
WEAKNESSES:
• SDS market expected to grow from $1.4bn to $6.2bn (CAGR 34.6%) by 2019 (Markets & Markets Research, 2015)
• Numerous vendors
• Multiple Channels to reach customers
• No standard skill set
• Difficulty of migration/integration
• Multi-vendor management
OPPORTUNITIES:
THREATS:
• Venture capital funding of SDS-related companies is rising
• Frequent technology changes
• Market embrace open source
• High customers’ bargaining power
• Focus on software over hardware
HIGH
MEDIUM
POTENTIAL ENTRANTS
INDUSTRY COMPETITION
BARGAINING POWER HIGH OF CUSTOMERS
Porter's Five Forces SDS Industry Analysis
LOW
THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES
BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS
MEDIUM
05
Buy What You Need Make sure you know the scope of solution offered the monitoring & performance capabilities, virtualization, troubleshooting and security features of SDS solution. Below are some of the other important features offered: Flash, NAS, Object, HDFS, Archive
Basic Feature Set Hardware, Software, Converged, Interoperability
Delivery Model
Data Resiliency
Replication, Erasure coding
Know what you need Openstack, VMware, Citrix, Amazon
DR Features
Cloud Integration
Snapshot, Auto-sync
BE INQUISITIVE
Know what you get
Efficiency
Scalability & Availability
BE PREPARED Multi-Tenancy, Scale-out, Metro cluster, Workload adjacency
Know how to optimize
STAY ALERT
Data deduplication, auto data tiering, compression, thin provisioning
Buyers Concerns And SI Role System Integrators (SI) can fill the gaps here as they are already providing storage integration services. By acquiring required new skill set and partnerships in SDS, they can help customers in their adoption journey which is a major concern of SDS market today.
USER’S CONCERNS
WHAT SI DOES
• Limited skills to evaluate best solution • Not sure which use-case to implement • Recent investments done in technology
Consultancy services
• • • •
Tested and Proven Solution
Will there be interoperability issues? Industry standards? Is the solution provided a tested one Whether to choose end to end or point solution
• How to integrate my storage from cloud • Develop customized apps I require • How to leverage existing storage
• Expertise & experience in integration services • Analyze the customer’s environment, Develop the roadmap and provide best fit solutions with best TCO savings and ROI
• Make sure the solutions offered are tested and proven • Whether to choose end to end or point solution
Integration & Migration Services Help customers by defining roadmap for integration and migration to required solutions
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• How to collaborate with different vendors • How to handle administration involving an environment of different vendors
Managed Service Provider Support Collaborate with different vendors and provide break-fix support from end to end
SI Providing Comprehensive Solution PEOPLE
PRACTICES & PROCESS
PRODUCT
Multi Skill Set SI will require people with dual/multi skills – Programming, Scripting, Automation
• Policy Based Service Portal for
users where they can allocate/de-allocate and manage storage based on requirement
• Developing Tools/Apps around predictive analytics, troubleshooting, auditing, policy governance
• Customized Reports & Dashboards
CREATION OF VALUES ACROSS ALL LAYERS
• Streamlining IT Processes
Streamlining processes for SLA/request/incident management can help further in reducing operational costs and costs per employee
Orchestration
• Vertical Integration with SDN,
Workloads
SDC, SDDC (Software Defined Network, Compute and Data center) solutions
• Policy Based Backup
Storage Resource Manger
Management
• Discovery Tool to check SDS
• Integrating the Right Things,
readiness of environment
Partners Ecosystem Evaluating partners and their solutions for best match of customer needs
Finding the white spaces in deployment process based on detailed analysis, application criticality mapping with storage tier considering performance growth, capacity etc.
• Customized SRM Unified
management across storage solutions
• Creation of virtual pool for
Object
Flash Block
File Hadoop
• Templatization of
maximizing the utilization and creating composite end state
application/workload centric and services driven deployment practice and processes
• Northbound API Development Aligning controller with SRM
• Cloud Integration API
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
• Provisioning Automation
Automate the processes which will help in saving Opex
Storage Controller
Vendor Agnostic Evaluate the partners’ solutions neutrally
• Southbound API Development
Mapping existing and identifying the gaps and develop custom
• Backup Archival & DR Services • Feature Enhancements
• Investment Protection
Leveraging existing infrastructure with SDS offerings
• Reuse/Recycle Using old and
traditional hardware for activities like archiving, storage etc
SAN
Hyper converged
NAS
FLASH
Development
CLOUD
Storage Infrastructures
• Integrated solutions in line with multiple consumption model Traditional, IaaS, Private and Public Cloud, pay as you grow
AGILITY
ELASTICITY
COST
FLEXIBILITY
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Conclusion Traditional IT, including storage systems, aren’t poised to fulfil customer's
Software Defined Storage is a new paradigm and requires efforts on
future needs and demands. The unprecedented growth of data (almost
integration, manageability and validation of what works and what doesn't
doubling every year) has added to new challenges. The unmet needs of
in customer data centers. This also requires a new set of tools,
businesses along with increasing operating costs, have led to innovation,
technologies and skill sets. This provides an unique opportunity to
new architectures and new products culminating into adoption and
System Integrators (SI) who are well placed to bring all the benefits of
growth of Software Defined Storage. While some of the business goals
Software Defined Storage, overcoming the challenges, using their home
are met with SDS - lower TCO along with agility and flexibility is
grown adoption methods, tools and technology expertise.
achieved - new challenges and issues have surfaced. Both, the large established vendors and umpteen number of start-ups, offering software defined storage in a wide variety, lead to multiple new challenges around interoperability, storage management, reporting, fragmentation leading to higher TCO, etc.
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About the Authors Jitendra Kumar Jain Jitendra Kumar Jain is a Senior Manager, Software Defined Infrastructure CoE, at Wipro Technologies. He brings 14+ years of experience in Technology and Program Management. Jitendra’s diverse background includes leadership role at an Outsourced product development services firm, he co-founded and managed, the role of Engineering Program Manager at NetApp, Inc. and Member, Technical staff roles in various software products development and architecture teams that he was part of. Jitendra holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electronics & communications engineering from Gulbarga University and is a Project Management Institute Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is married with two children and lives in Bangalore.
Manjari Sharma Manjari Sharma has been a part of the Global 100 Intern program at Wipro and is currently enrolled in the Post Graduate Program in Management at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Before starting out on her management journey, she worked for five and a half years in infrastructure management services at IT majors such as Infosys and Wipro. Her experience is primarily in computing and Network platform. She has a keen interest in Technology and Marketing.
Mayur Shah Mayur Shah is Head Presales - Datacenter, System Integration and Maintenance Services. He is an experienced engineering graduate and IT professional with 17 years of experience in techno-commercial design of large and complex DC transformation solutions and delivery. Varied experience in understanding business requirements and creating Infrastructure Outsourcing Solutions. Experience in the development of IT strategy at a global level and services offerings for business growth. Core skills and experience in Compute and storage delivered through cloud technology. Have successfully delivered various roles in storage domain - SME, Storage Practice Head, Presales and now leading software defined storage practice for global market as one of the key objectives Rich experience in strategy & operations entailing setting up solution architecture and new business solution development organization. Sound understanding of Infrastructure Technology Outsouring (ITO) to acquire new business with the distinction of handling many deals of varying size. Managing turnkey contracts, transformational programs, transaction and outcome based pricing, services innovation, unit set up and operations. Broad exposure to the various industry verticals in both domestic and global market. Contact us at [email protected]
About GIS Global Infrastructure Services (GIS), a unit of Wipro Limited, is an end to end IT infrastructure & outsourcing services provider to global customers across 57 countries. Its suite of Technology Infrastructure services spanning Data Center, End User Computing, Networks, Managed Services, Business Advisory and Global System Integration. Wipro, is a pioneer in Infrastructure Management services and is amongst the fastest-growing providers across the world. GIS enables customers to do business better by enabling innovation via standardization and automation, so that businesses can be more agile & scalable, so that they can find growth and succeed in their global business. Backed by our strong network of Integrated ServiceNXT™ Operation Centers and 11 owned data centres spread across US, Europe and APAC, this unit serves more than 500+ clients across with a global team of 23,800 professionals and contributes to over 30% of Wipro’s IT Services revenues of Wipro Limited.
About Wipro Limited Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading Information Technology, Consulting and Business Process Services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology" - helping clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, a practitioner's approach to delivering innovation, and an organization wide commitment to sustainability, Wipro has a workforce of over 150,000 serving clients in 175+ cities across 6 continents. For more information, please visit www.wipro.com.
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